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Talk:BreakTheInternet/@comment-3575890-20170307161010
UNPOPULAR OPINION Even though the representation would be great, I'm fine with Jughead not being aro ace because: 1) He is not exclusively this. His asexuality is only canon in Chip's version, which is relatively new. In the original digests, however, he has romantic interests. He doesn't show interest in the opposite sex (and not at all in the same sex) all that often, but it has happened on occasion, which puts him more on a grey area on the spectrum than definitively defines him as aro ace. He has romances with several different women and while he's not overtly hormonal like his hetero male counterparts, it is clear he has the capacity to have romantic feelings. Whether he's ace or not, it's not established in the original comics, and he's definitely not aro. He marries a woman in the future. 2) This Jughead isn't Chip's Jughead and neither is comics!Archie, classic!Betty (she is OG Betty all the way), comics!Ronnie, etc, etc. This is a faithful adaptation for the most part, but with most onscreen adaptations from books and visual novels, there are nuances that stray from the source canon. What matters, is that the integrity of the characters in their original essence is upheld, and I truly feel that it is. Most discrepencies between comic and television character are improvements. Riverdale's Veronica is softer, kinder, and less selfish, but this is not a complete deviation from the comics, because this Ronnie WAS originally all of those things in show canon that predates the series, we just don't see this side of her, and this Ronnie's good qualities, comic!Ronnie encompassed too. The difference is that the scale has shifted. In this version, Ronnie's good qualities outweigh her bad due to a lot of growing up she was forced to do under the most strenuous of circumstances - those that comic!Ronnie never underwent. Now, Juggie is a more stark deviation from the comic book self and initially I was outraged by the changes. The Juggie I grew up with only cares about food, sleeping, his little sister, and his dog. But after some thought, I realized that a perfect adaptation from comic!Jughead could never be properly translated on screen without compromising the dark tone of the show. I love comic!Juggie, but he is in all essence a caricature. Changes had to be made to his character in order for him to fit in this series at all. One change that wasn't needed was the show runner's hard pass at Chip's ace Juggie, it would have made some great television, but as Chip's version of Juggie is essentially only one of many, and established by a different creator, I can accept that show!Juggie may not encompass Chip's Juggie, or even original!Juggie because he is just another variation of the character. And because the changes made to the character stem from situational factors, I can accept this. As I've already said, I could not initially see any of the character I know and love from my childhood because Cole's Juggie traded out the ravenous appetite with an appetite for journalism, his disinterest in relationships with disconnect from social conventions, and his voluntary solidarity with involuntary loneliness. But the reasons for this make sense with the show canon. Juggie isn't scarfing down a superfluous unlimited supply of food anymore because he cannot even afford the bare minimum of necessary sustenance. He craves a closeness with another person he never did in the comics because he has nobody in his life he can depend on anymore. He's fallen out of touch with Archie, his dad seems to have abandoned him, he's lost his little sister, who is he really still close with other than Betty? His attachment to her clearly stems from these abandonment issues. Again, issues that did not exist in the comics because comic!Juggie had a circle of friends and a loving family. This Juggie is darker and less caricaturistic as the result overall, like all the rest of the characters, but he's also been through a lot more and incurred greater losses that have hardened and darkened him than comic!Juggie ever did. At his core though, he's still aloof, sarcastic, sexually/romantically grey Juggie. With what they've had to work with, and with what aspects they've chosen to adapt to the screen, I think Cole has done a pretty good job with bringing the character to life while at the same time, making the character his own. Essentially, I think what makes this Juggie work in my eyes is the fact that if comic!Juggie had lost everything he held dear in the comics, this more broody and sardonic Holden Caulfield-type verison of him is probably what he'd have become. We see a glimpse of it in Afterlife with Archie. Sure, that's just another another version of Juggie out of no shortage of sorts, but I think that's the Jughead they chose to channel into show!Juggie as it's the darkest and most tonally serious version of Juggie to ever exist in the comics franchise. 3) Betty and Juggie is not random. It hasn't happened often enough for it to be canon in the comics, but there has always been that underlying potential for Bethead. It has established multiple times in comic canon that if Jughead ever decided he did want a relationship, that it would be Betty he would want that with. He has always had a respect and appreciation for her that ironically, the boy Betty longed for, never showed her nearly as often. It was often him who would comfort her, albeit in his own disconnected way, whenever Archie would stand her up, cheat on her with Ronnie, or either of the two would stab her in the back. Betty was often Ronnie's punching bag and Archie's substitute for Ronnie when she wasn't available to date, but do you know what she was never to Jughead? Neither of those things. Jughead protected her as often as Archie hurt her, which was far too often, and he always held Betty in the highest esteem. Sometimes, he'd even wing man for her because even he felt Archie was wrong to neglect Betty for Ronnie. Bethead always made more sense to me than Barchie in the comic canon. Obviously not in Chip's version where Juggie was canonically aro ace. I fully respected that and felt that the version made sense in respect to not just the new source material, but the essence of Juggie's character. However, in the original comics that filled up most of my days as a child? Absolutely was Bethead a feasible possibility that made sense. And in this onscreen version, it certainly does too. 4) There are multiple versions of Juggie spanning over a 75-year long timeline. This Juggie is simply yet another.